Route profile
IND→BOS
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Indianapolis to Boston, 818 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 58% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 6,127 flights. How this is calculated
IND → BOS arrives on time 81.7% of the time; the return trip, BOS → IND, arrives on time 84.7% of the time, a 3.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
IND → BOS spends 27.1 minutes on the ground on an 818-mile trip: 17.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at IND and 10.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at BOS.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where IND to BOS differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
IND to BOS is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 7 PM: 78.2% arrive on time, 11 points ahead of the 67.2% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 10.4 points.
IND to BOS holds up on Saturdays better than routes of similar length do: 87.1% on time to their 78.7%, a 8.4 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 8 points.
June is kinder to IND to BOS than to routes of similar length: 81.8% on time against 71.7%, 10.1 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 9.1 points.
In September, IND to BOS runs 8.2 points below routes of similar length, 74.3% on time to 82.5%. Against all other routes the gap is 8.1 points.
IND to BOS against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 78.2% | routes of similar length | 67.2% | +11.0 pts | 202 here, 133,297 there |
| Weekday: Saturday | 87.1% | routes of similar length | 78.7% | +8.4 pts | 573 here, 293,086 there |
| Month: June | 81.8% | routes of similar length | 71.7% | +10.1 pts | 523 here, 188,745 there |
| Month: September | 74.3% | routes of similar length | 82.5% | −8.2 pts | 478 here, 180,415 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 818 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why IND → BOS flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
IND → BOS cancelled 99 of 6,127 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 62. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 46.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 133 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 99 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
46 cancellations, 46.5% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
39 cancellations, 39.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
14 cancellations, 14.1% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
99 coded cancellations were recorded on IND → BOS; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
44 min late
against a median of 10 min early
Percentiles over 6,127 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BOS after arriving from IND.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 30% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 18% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.0% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.62% of the time and diverts 0.20% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 6,016 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 44 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 6,127 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
IND → BOS flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.9% of the time, against 72.1% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 20.8 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 94.0% on time from 907 flights
- 7 AM: 90.4% on time from 443 flights
- 8 AM: 93.4% on time from 197 flights
- 9 AM: 88.9% on time from 502 flights
- 10 AM: 89.7% on time from 253 flights
- 11 AM: 89.2% on time from 402 flights
- 12 PM: 80.5% on time from 511 flights
- 1 PM: 74.2% on time from 131 flights
- 2 PM: 72.3% on time from 633 flights
- 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 75.3% on time from 343 flights
- 5 PM: 71.9% on time from 719 flights
- 6 PM: 69.6% on time from 664 flights
- 7 PM: 78.2% on time from 205 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why IND → BOS runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for IND → BOS. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 5,891 | 81.9% | 1.63% | -10 min | 7.4% |
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
YX5631 (6:00 AM) arrived on time 93.7% of the time, 24.4 points more often than YX4726 (6:43 PM) at 69.3%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 8.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 84.0%
- Feb: 85.0%
- Mar: 84.7%
- Apr: 86.3%
- May: 79.0%
- Jun: 81.8%
- Jul: 76.5%
- Aug: 80.4%
- Sep: 74.3%
- Oct: 83.3%
- Nov: 89.3%
- Dec: 78.6%
September is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 15.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 76.5% from 169 flights
- August 2023: 82.2% from 176 flights
- September 2023: 75.5% from 161 flights
- October 2023: 93.4% from 167 flights
- November 2023: 96.1% from 154 flights
- December 2023: 85.6% from 134 flights
- January 2024: 78.0% from 146 flights
- February 2024: 88.9% from 153 flights
- March 2024: 85.3% from 163 flights
- April 2024: 85.4% from 164 flights
- May 2024: 79.6% from 163 flights
- June 2024: 85.6% from 176 flights
- July 2024: 82.6% from 179 flights
- August 2024: 80.1% from 180 flights
- September 2024: 85.4% from 171 flights
- October 2024: 93.1% from 173 flights
- November 2024: 88.3% from 163 flights
- December 2024: 78.7% from 151 flights
- January 2025: 89.9% from 161 flights
- February 2025: 84.7% from 147 flights
- March 2025: 83.4% from 165 flights
- April 2025: 86.0% from 164 flights
- May 2025: 70.9% from 173 flights
- June 2025: 74.6% from 175 flights
- July 2025: 68.4% from 177 flights
- August 2025: 78.7% from 172 flights
- September 2025: 60.9% from 160 flights
- October 2025: 63.5% from 173 flights
- November 2025: 83.6% from 162 flights
- December 2025: 72.8% from 160 flights
- January 2026: 83.4% from 169 flights
- February 2026: 81.3% from 157 flights
- March 2026: 85.3% from 174 flights
- April 2026: 87.5% from 168 flights
- May 2026: 86.7% from 167 flights
- June 2026: 85.2% from 177 flights
- July 2026: 78.3% from 183 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.0% against 81.8% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 6,127 IND → BOS flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed